Pedestrian deaths linked to 'unsafe' bridge design

April 26, 2014

Updated April 28, 2014 11:09 a.m.

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A homeless man moves his bicycle near where another man was critically injured after accidentally falling the night of April 18 from a raised section of Katella Avenue some 40 feet over the Santa Ana River in Anaheim. KEN STEINHARDT, STAFF PHOTOGRTAPHER

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Cars move over the Santa Ana River near where a man accidentally fell last Friday night from this raised section of Katella Avenue. The man is in critical condition after falling nearly 40 feet in Anaheim. KEN STEINHARDT, STAFF PHOTOGRTAPHER

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A man is in critical condition after accidentally falling last Friday night from a raised section of Katella Avenue. The bridge is constructed in two separate sections some 40 feet over the Santa Ana River in Anaheim. KEN STEINHARDT, STAFF PHOTOGRTAPHER

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The open median between directions of traffic on Rancho Santa Margarita Parkway bridge in Rancho Santa Margarita has claimed the life of at least one unsuspecting victim. SAM GANGWER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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The open median between directions of traffic on Rancho Santa Margarita Parkway bridge, pictured here looking up from the underside of the bridge, in Rancho Santa Margarita has claimed the life of at least one unsuspecting victim. SAM GANGWER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

A homeless man moves his bicycle near where another man was critically injured after accidentally falling the night of April 18 from a raised section of Katella Avenue some 40 feet over the Santa Ana River in Anaheim. KEN STEINHARDT, STAFF PHOTOGRTAPHER

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Jennifer Hashimoto, 35, looked for a safe place to gather lost belongs on the Santa Margarita Parkway bridge. Stepping over a barrier in the center, she plunged through a gap, plummeting 70 feet to her death.

Gregory Wolters, a 45-year-old city contractor, stepped over a barrier and into the same gap during a routine bridge inspection. He plunged to his death.

Guillermo Gomez, 27, hopped over a divider on Katella Avenue near the Honda center, heading for his car. He fell through a space between lanes and hit the riverbed 40 feet below.

He died soon after.

The three deaths point to dangers in the design of at least two Orange County bridges, each of which have large openings that separate opposing directions of traffic.

Neither bridge is designed for pedestrians, but pedestrians inevitably use them.

Last week, a 23-year-old man hopped the center dividing wall as he was trying to cross the same Katella Avenue bridge after a hockey game.

He fell into the gap between lanes and was critically injured.

At night, gaps are almost invisible to pedestrians unless they carefully peer over the barriers, bridge-users and experts say.

Without railings, fences or warning signs to signal danger beyond the low dividing walls, victims might not suspect they are stepping into a deadly emptiness until it is already yawning beneath them.

“Of course we heard, ‘It’s (the victim’s) fault,’ ‘It’s their responsibility,’ ‘He should have been aware of his surroundings,’” said Thomas Gomez, Guillermo’s brother. “And it’s like, then why do we put railing on anything?

“We do it because we know that people have accidents.”

Rancho Santa Margarita added some safety features to the Santa Margarita Parkway bridge after Wolters’ fatal fall in 2006.

The next year, the city used $283,000 in state transportation grant money to add new railing, and the city added lights the next year.

In 2010, the City Council considered adding fencing, netting or other safety features to bridges, but a survey found that 78 percent of residents opposed fencing or netting because it would block views and degrade the bridge’s appearance.

City and county officials responsible for the Katella Avenue bridge did not add safety features after Gomez’ death in 2008.

Anaheim officials said in a statement that fencing is slated to go up this summer along the median where Gomez and the young man fell.

To Thomas Gomez, officials’ failure to make the bridge safer after his brother’s death is inexcusable and emotionally devastating, given the second death April 18.

“We thought they were going to fix something and then to find out that they didn’t do anything, I can’t express in words the mixed feelings and the heartache,” Gomez said. “The hopelessness.”

FATAL MISTAKES

County and state bridge design standards have long acknowledged the risks of open-median bridges such as Katella Avenue and Santa Margarita Parkway.

County design standards put in place after Wolters’ fatal fall in 2006 require railing and chain-link fence along new open-median bridges.

Railing along open medians also was indicated in county design standards dating back to 1986.

The California Department of Transportation’s design standards call for a 4-foot-wide “safety shoulder” along such open medians.

But, according attorneys Robert R. Clayton and John C. Taylor of the Los Angles law firm Taylor & Ring LLP, Orange County failed to follow its own design standards for open medians, or the state’s standards, when in 1989 it began building the Katella Avenue Bridge.

The Gomez family hired the attorneys to bring a wrongful death lawsuit against the county, Anaheim, and other defendants in 2008.

Ultimately, the jury sided with the defendants, who said the bridge was safe when used with due caution.

Clayton said he was shocked that the lawsuit failed to prompt safety measures on the bridge.

“They all spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending that case and we truly thought they would do something to protect people, Clayton said.

Kellie Wolters got better results when she sued Rancho Santa Margarita and other defendants for the wrongful death of her husband, Gregory Wolters, in 2007.

The city agreed to a confidential settlement with Kellie Wolters in 2009.

City officials did not respond Friday to questions about the amount of the settlement.

Ehab Maximous, Rancho Santa Margarita’s public works director and city engineer, said the Santa Margarita Parkway bridge was constructed to applicable design standards at the time.

Since then, the city has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on upgrades to improve safety, Maximous said.

John Taylor, one of the attorneys who represented Thomas Gomez in his brother’s wrongful death lawsuit, said that any government that ignores known safety concerns puts taxpayers at risk.

“What all the defendants argued in our trial is that they had no idea, and they could not conceive that this would ever happen, and there had been no prior incidents,” Taylor said. “But from our incident forward, they can no longer make that argument.”

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